


Something Stupid

by purpjools



Series: Human Hazbin Roommates AU [8]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: 3.6 roentgen, Alastor isn't Terrible at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Barebacking, Creampie, Day 4 First Time, Fluff, Human Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Human Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Human Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Last Timezone, M/M, Mild Theological Discussion, Radio Show Host Alastor, RadioDust Week, Serenade, Slight Smut, Ukulele, he's getting there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24305797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpjools/pseuds/purpjools
Summary: Day 4 of RadioDust week: First TimeAlastor and Angel aren’t necessarily conventional when it comes to first milestones.In fact, one could argue they did everything ass-backwards and against the tide.Well, as they say:There’s a first time for everything, from the mundane to the extraordinary.
Relationships: Alastor & Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor/Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel)
Series: Human Hazbin Roommates AU [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699558
Comments: 31
Kudos: 191





	Something Stupid

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Lesassypotato for prompting me to finish my secret ukulele scene.

When the world went quiet on those muggy summer nights, Angel liked to sit on the porch and close his eyes.

He’d lean forward to the sounds of strumming, and Alastor’s voice singing in the warm night wind. It’s commonplace now, but before, when everything was morning-dawn new, he could only hope that Alastor would continue.

The last time Alastor sang to him went like this:

“Hey, Al?”

The world was spinning but in a good way. Angel, drunk out of his mind, decided the best place to be, at a little after two in the morning, was flat on his back in the middle of their tiny lawn. The stars gleamed overhead, twinkling just like the nursery rhyme. He predicted the sigh before it landed on his skin as Alastor brought his hand to his lips.

“Yes, darling?” he murmured against Angel’s freckles.

“Do ya believe in heaven?”

Angel felt him smile against his skin.

“As much as I’d like to entertain ecclesiastical malarkey, I’d have to say: _no_.”

Angel pouted.

“C’mon, Al, ya don’t even believe in the possibility of it? Like, I ain’t the best Catholic by far”-Alastor scoffed at that admission, and Angel kicked him with his foot-“but it’s nice to believe in somethin’, right?”

Alastor’s reply was droll. “I believe in myself. I’m sure that counts for currency.”

Angel flipped over to his stomach, mimicking Alastor’s position. He yanked his hand back before leaning it back in to flick Alastor on the chin. He dreamily watched as Alastor’s eyes underwent metamorphosis: placid to unrestrainedly murderous and back.

He grinned, cheekily.

“It don’t. But babe, I thought ya said ya went to church?”

“Went, Angel. It’s the operative word, in past tense.”

His fingers scratched idly along Alastor’s jaw. “And that never convinced ya of nothin’?”

Alastor tilted his head, accepting the light touches. “It convinced me that people are hypocritical animals and that hearsay is never reliable.”

He lowered his lids, focusing his attention on Angel despite the distraction.

“May I ask, dear, where this is all going?”

“Apparently fuckin’ nowhere,” Angel sighed, disappointment flavoring his tone.

Alastor, for his part, caught on with surprising swiftness. It shocked Angel at how much he seemed to be trying lately. He wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, however.

“Darling,” Alastor said, as Angel melted at the way the endearment rolled off his tongue, “if there is a heaven, I’ll raze down the pearly gates to get to you. If there is a hell, I’ll ensure your descent if need be.”

He stunned Angel with his admission, and again with the softness of his mouth. Angel recalled the day he admitted to loving Alastor’s kisses. He still felt (feels) the same, and wished (wishes) that it lasts forever.

Alastor broke away. Angel whimpered in response.

“Wait here,” he said, leaving Angel with the stars.

When Alastor returned, he nudged Angel awake with his foot. Angel did, but with dramatic reluctance.

Alastor settled down next to him, ukulele in hands, and began tuning.

“Any particular hymns?” he asked, wryly.

“I can name a few,” Angel fired back.

Alastor obliged.

In the quiet after, their conversation went:

“We’re good at sex.”

“Spectacular.”

“We fuckin’ suck at communicatin’.”

“Abysmally.”

Presently, Angel thinks they’re improving.

He’s trying to be less capricious. For his part, Alastor has begun physically removing himself from the room when his temper reaches boiling point. He always comes back, though the first time he left, Angel was a right mess. When Alastor returned, he deferentially apologized with his body and set everything back to rights.

Angel lingers in the hallway, swaying his body to a song stuck in his head. He meanders in the private space, snatching up tendrils of inimical conversation from the kitchen, all background noise to the music playing in his head.

Alastor and Husk have been friends for a long time. But, as the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. This is one of those moments. And as much as Angel does not want to be a part of their squabbling, he relents.

He misses Alastor, after all. He can’t bear to spend more than a fleeting moment without him.

He knows what it means. He’s just not willing to verbalize it yet.

Who knows how Alastor would react?

Angel walks into the room, gliding under the arch, fully intending to interrupt their conversation when he hears Alastor speak.

“My _boyfriend_ doesn’t need to be told anything…”

Angel goes temporarily deaf. He’s struck dumb with a spine-tingling sensation, goosebumps marching up his skin.

_Boyfriend._

Angel’s heart cracks open, leaps, and sails.

Boyfriend.

And isn’t that the whole truth.

He walks over to greet his boyfriend.

* * *

“That’s the third wine glass you’ve broken this year,” he hisses.

“That’s it. I’m purchasing all our glassware from the dollar store from now on.”

Husk responds with a rude gesture. He makes a loose fist and moves it, diagonally, up and down.

“Suck it, Al. It ain’t my fault your goddamn boyfriend keeps leaping out at me like a fucking jumping spider.”

They started an idiotic game two weeks ago, in which everyone did their utmost to frighten the living hell out of each other. Alastor was winning, of course, but Angel put up an admirable fight. He was surprisingly as underhanded as them, perhaps even more so, going insofar as to camp out in the alcove near the door and wait in ambush for either Husk or Alastor to arrive home. Alastor may be scheming, Husk may be crooked, but Angel.

Oh, Angel.

Pretty, quick on the uptake, beloved Angel is nothing if not persistent.

The thought is instant aphrodisiac to Alastor.

When Niffty questioned their collective sanity days ago, Husk failed to produce the right answer, fumbling over his futile attempt to explain the reasoning behind the madness. Alastor, feeling rather charitable that evening, summarized succinctly:

“Boys will be boys” and left it at that.

It seemed to adequately satisfy her. Vaggie, on the other hand, mumbled, “Morons will be morons.”

Alastor said nothing to that, as it was a fairly accurate assessment.

He narrows his eyes at Husk’s accusation.

“How is that Angel’s fault? It appears to me that a lack of foresight on your part directly contributed to the demise of our wine glasses.”

Husk repeats the gesture. Alastor rolls his eyes.

“Fuck you, buddy. I ain’t doing squat. You tell your boytoy to stop scaring the shit outta me when I’m drinking, and I’ll cut it out when he leaves his room.”

Alastor scoffs.

“My _boyfriend_ doesn’t need to be told anything. First point. Secondly, you’re a veritable feedback loop of drinking, which makes that unavoidable.”

There’s the muted sound of bare feet padding into the kitchen, and they both snap to attention.

The simultaneous object of his affection and bane of his existence enters the room. Speak of the devil, Alastor thinks, the beast within purring in delight.

He’s wearing one of Alastor’s shirts, hastily buttoned as evident from the mismatched holes. It barely covers his bottom, but Alastor doesn’t mind. Should Husk try anything untoward, well.

This is the kitchen.

The knives are within striking distance, after all.

Angel prances towards them, somewhat unsteadily, and while it creates a stirring sensation in Alastor’s stomach and the area decidedly south, it’s Angel’s expression that moves him.

His face, effused with the divine light of breath-taking joy.

It throws him off a tad.

Alastor shuffles through the probable scenarios that could have brought such an expression on, but stops short as Angel arrives before him. He leans in.

Both instinct and habit by now, Alastor kisses him.

He ignores Husk’s plaintive whine (“I’m still fucking here, ya third-wheeling dickbags”) and deepens the kiss. He’s certain that Husk storms out when he starts sucking on Angel’s tongue, but he’s not a hundred percent sure.

He finds that he doesn’t particularly care.

When they both pull back, Alastor hopes that his expression isn’t as fatuously ecstatic as Angel’s.

Hope springs eternal, he crossly thinks as his heart says otherwise. Angel beams at him.

“Al, I wanna hear ya play something tonight,” he requests coquettishly.

His smile widens, and Alastor subconsciously and immediately agrees.

“Any requests?”

“Just one.”

He loops his pinkie with Alastor’s, holding fast, warm and tight.

* * *

He adjusts his fingers on the frets and strums a few chords.

Not right, he thinks.

He slides his hand up the neck, turning the pegs. He strums each string, listening carefully to the sound from their vibrations.

“My dog has fleas,” he sings.

Not quite.

“My dog has fleas,” he attempts again. The corresponding chords finally match his pitch.

There, he thinks. Perfect.

He places the tips of his fingers, directly below the nail, on the correct frets, strumming in practice and establishing a rough feel for the chords. When the metronome residing in his head is satisfied, Alastor knows he’s ready.

“Know any good ones?” Angel inquires, cheeky. Alastor barks out a laugh.

“You’re going to have to more specific than that, dearie.” He shoots a warm glance at him. “Hum a few bars?”

Angel does. Alastor smiles, sly and calculating, then declares, “Let’s try something different tonight, my dear.”

He begins to strum.

He peeks a glance at Angel’s face.

He appears confused, but his apparent appreciation at Alastor’s serenade supersedes any other emotion. His expressive face gives away the plot. Shrugging, Angel sways to the unfamiliar melody.

Another few chords and Alastor begins to sing. He focuses on landing the correct frets and the right tempo before easing into familiar practice. His fingers fly as he serenades his beloved.

He doesn’t need to look to envision Angel’s expression.

Alastor has observed it innumerable times whenever he surprises Angel with a first, anything that Angel has never experienced before. In these few and far between moments, Alastor cherishes every one of Angel’s reactions, from the minute to the grand. Among Angel’s moods, this is the least fickle.

He can’t look up, focused on the chords as he is, but he imagines Angel in awe, awash in wonderment.

Angel believes himself unworthy of a song written and dedicated explicitly for him. Alastor makes it his mission to disabuse him of that daft notion. To be sure and not to be misconstrued, this song is foremost, Angel’s. Alastor wrote it, no ifs, ands, or buts, with Angel in mind.

Alastor does what he cannot formulate into plain speech.

He sings.

He sings with words he will not express plainly in his regular, sweeping vernacular. Alastor sings, skating the razor’s edge of cheesy and splendiferous. He sings about ache, about life, and all the other coy words referencing love without stating it outright.

He croons about their story. How the ending, thus far, winds and tangles with the beginning, and how everything that is their middle comprises the torso of their ouroboros: their endless, inevitable loop.

One thing, for certain: They were always meant to collide.

He sings about that, and then every other truth.

Angel lends his voice to the siren song.

It’s a quiet, spoken affirmation, but it completes their symphony.

* * *

“Hey babe,” he says after Alastor finished his song and with him.

They’re lying on a futon set down on the concrete border between the house and the lawn, completely bare but draped by a blanket.

At this point in time, Alastor enters him with minimal prep. Angel accepts him bordering on febrile madness. The terms issued during their karaoke session were initially meant to be jest, but the kink spilled out and over into their sex life.

As Alastor bit down on Angel’s shoulder, he thought of how lucky he was to have someone at his beck and call for all his sacrilegious needs. It equally intrigued him at how much he enjoys being at Angel’s behest.

Angel’s newly dyed pink hair tickled his nose as he marked his territory. He praised him earlier, circling his index finger around his puckered hole to tease (“Fill me up, baby”) and reiterated what a good pet Angel was being before thrusting in (“Yes, darling, yes”). The slick slide of it, along with Alastor’s lazy thrusting, built up the pleasure in slow bursts. He wrapped his arms around Angel’s torso while Angel insolently attempted to push back into Alastor’s spooning embrace. Angel’s body suffocated his cock and all Alastor could do was surrender. He spilled. Angel’s hole swallowed all the spend from his cock, just as he was trained to do.

“Stay inside,” Angel had begged, and Alastor was lost.

He did his utmost, but eventually he slipped out from Angel’s body as he softened. He kissed him in apology and promise. He held him for a moment, then untethered himself to get up and wash his hands. He pulled his boxer briefs on for Husk’s sake and left.

Angel was in the same position when he returned.

“Hey babe?”

He rakes his eyes over Angel, mildly interested at the interruption. Having washed his hands, he picks up the ukulele again in an attempt to keep his idle fingers occupied.

Transparency was never his strong suit, but Alastor has always been unambiguous about his predilections above all things, so he is marginally blindsided when Angel hits him with this question.

“Jus’ wonderin’…ya ever slept with Husk?”

Alastor manages to not bark out a laugh, but it’s a near thing. The question is tinged with more than a little jealousy, so Alastor entertains it.

“Why?” He averts his eyes back to his task, absently testing the tensile strength of the strings. He shields them from Angel’s gaze to conceal his amusement.

Angel bristles.

“Just fuckin’ curious, ‘sall,” he mutters, livid now. Alastor, knowing when to heed a warning, unlike Angel, sighs.

“Not my type, unfortunately,” he admits. “Would have been terribly convenient, though.”

“What is your type?”

“Hmm? Oh, I’d imagine someone incredibly obnoxious, demanding, insolent, and unbearably loud.”

Angel snorts. “Hey! I ain’t that obnoxious, asshole!”

He unfolds his arms, and Alastor braces himself for another round of Italian whinging.

“Can’t believe I put up with your ass, ya lucky I love you ya know-”

His fingers slacken at the admission.

Alastor drops whatever he was holding.

Right, his mind unhelpfully adds. His ukulele.

He stares uselessly down at it, its broad wooden back exposed on his lap. He’s imagining static for some reason as his brain stutters and grinds to a halt.

He hopes it’s tinnitus, but the rational part of him knows it’s not.

It’s an age-old reaction to stress: epinephrine floods his body as sympathetic activation grabs hold. Fight or flight, in layman’s terms. Alastor usually thrives during this response, channeling his energy to utilitarian matters, but he’s learning quickly that anything involving Angel is anomalous.

He demurs.

The fact is, Alastor violently resists any attempts to breach the walls surrounding him. He can’t recall a time when defense wasn’t gospel.

It shouldn’t change now.

“Al, ya don’t gotta say it back, it’s fine, I promise,” Angel says, doing an impressive job at keeping the plaint out of his voice.

Alastor remains silent. It’s not that, he wants to say. It’s not that I can’t say it, he thinks.

Alastor is perfectly capable of speech; he’s a radio host, for heaven’s sake. He’s a wordsmith, a silver-tongued demon, a modern bard. He lies with ease and in the same breath, sings adulations. Words are his weapons, and he takes fastidious care in sharpening them.

Alastor holds so much weight in words. It’s drilled into his head. He grew up reciting Yeats, Eliot, Hughes, Cummings. It isn’t a surprise, therefore, when he chooses a muzzle in lieu of the wrong ones.

But the words that Angel asks for, the words that dare not leave his withered, dead heart, must be undercut with some measure of truth. It’s what Angel deserves. The time for mendacity has passed.

This, he can’t give him.

This, he won’t.

This is sacred and profane.

This is the last sovereign stronghold.

Alastor does not know how to give him this without losing himself.

He grabs Angel’s hand, palm skittering over smooth skin. He takes a moment to admire the sheen of purple polish, fetchingly shimmering under the porch lights. He painted the nails on his right hand, himself. It soothed both of them: Angel sporting a soft smile as Alastor fanned the polish on meticulously, leaving paths of plum over each crescent tip.

Alastor flips Angel’s hand over, palm side up, and cradles the back of it. Wordlessly, he extends his pointer finger and brings it to the soft, lined skin.

He writes.

L

O

V

E

I’m sorry, he doesn’t say. I’m sorry I can’t vocalize this. It’s all you deserve and nothing I do.

It irritates him how banal this is all becoming. He desperately craves a new form of entertainment, but this particular handicap cribs him (them) from moving forward.

“Oh, darling,” he says instead. It’s a piss poor substitute.

He knows it’s not enough, but right now, it’s all he can give.

He doesn’t know when he’ll ever be able to say it, if ever. There are too many enemies that surround the fortress for him to turn lax and idealistic.

Which is ridiculous, he thinks. He gnaws into his enemies with his words, having no innate otherworldly powers to protect him.

(But oh, he’s done some unspeakable things with his hands)

And yet, he’s unable to vocalize those three insidious words.

His cheeks heat. He feels puerile.

He inwardly berates himself for his inadequacy, his inability to budge on this. He places high regard in his sharp wit, his full and nuanced vocabulary, often to the point of verbosity. Yet one word from Angel and he’s brought down to his knees.

Angel, sensing his discomfit, stacks his other hand over Alastor’s, reinforcing the flimsy construction.

Alternating, together, and stronger for it.

Angel is crying.

It is because of him.

Something lodges in his throat. It seizes up his vocal cords. The sensation is unfamiliar.

Alastor leans in and comforts him the only way he knows how.

Angel accepts the kiss.

Without words, Alastor shows him how much.

What is love, he muses.

Is it grandiose, inflammatory gestures? Is it subtle, peripheral pantomimes? Or is it somewhere, linked in between everyday actions that don’t mind if a trope is overused or if a heart has wrung out all its fear to make room for affection.

Alastor knows, deep in his bones and in the grave dirt where he’s buried his heart, that it’s the latter.

The heart wants what it wants, penned Emily Dickinson, ages ago.

It is, revised beyond all recognition, Alastor’s new fundamental truth.

He carries Angel’s heart, in the style and sentiment of Cummings, ensconced in his.

* * *

Alastor sits at his desk in front of the microphone. He’s reciting something or other, a steady cadence of words streaming out of his mouth and into the receiver.

Thousands are tuning in to his show on this balmy summer’s night. Teenage girls are laying on their backs on carpeted floors, dirty feet pressed up against the wall, next to an antique radio. The lovers embracing in the car have their phones hooked up to the sound system. In clandestine night clubs, private rooms dedicated to listening parties exist as in between spaces as club goers sway with meditative abandon. The late-night diners lose themselves to melodious crooning, drinking their coffee and staring out into the deep dark.

Alastor punctuates his monologue with a flourish. He adjusts his headphones. It’s time for the song, as well as a much-needed break for his vocal cords.

He fiddles with the various switches on the mixing deck, adjusting the fader while preparing a song he’s terribly fond of.

He’s in a wonderful mood tonight. Husk and Niffty are at the movies with Charlie and Vaggie on some sort of double date. Angel has the night off. He’s currently waiting at home with their new pet. He promised to listen in on the show tonight, and what else is new? Alastor heard through the grapevine (Husk is a horrid gossip) that Angel listens to it every chance he gets.

He was quoted as saying, “Pal, the kid would listen to it every waking moment if he could. Guy’s head over fucking heels.”

Alastor glances at his watch, the one Angel purchased for him last month. The arms are frozen in time ever since he’d needed to head down to the docks to take care of a few loose ends a fortnight ago. It’s salvageable, fortuitously. Alastor had, for some inexplicable reason, dragged his feet in repairing it.

1:43, the time eternally reads.

He pauses. A queer idea slithers through his mind. Before he has the chance to stamp it down, he acts.

“And now, dear listeners, it’s time for some tunes.”

It’s borderline cheesy; it’s camp. But that’s Alastor, and he knows someone out there who wouldn’t change that for the world.

“Tonight, we’re going to end with a song near and dear to my heart. As such, I’d like to make a special dedication to someone who means the absolute world to me.”

He hesitates, but it’s only to draw breath. When Alastor makes up his mind, he sees it through, all the way.

It hasn’t guided him wrong so far.

Alastor is not one for poetic declarations or rhapsodic sweeping gestures. He takes solace in simple reminders, daily endearments. This is all rather new to him, see.

But the one thing Alastor hates above all, more than boredom, is stagnation.

And that simply won’t do.

“This one goes out to the one I love.”

It’s not just a start.

It is the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song, Something Stupid, performed by Frank and Nancy Sinatra or by Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams.
> 
> 1\. “My dog has fleas” is a crude way of tuning an ukulele. It’s set to the tune of chords G, C, E, and A.
> 
> 2\. “The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care” is a quote from Emily Dickinson's correspondence to Mary Bowles in 1862.
> 
> 3\. Alastor references the poem, [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in], by E. E. Cummings.
> 
> 4\. One more day, one more fluffy/smutty story left!
> 
> Thank you for reading


End file.
